The crisis was a new setback in the Pope's fight to recover from a complicated respiratory infection, which has lasted more than two weeks. Pope Francis has chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man.

Medics at Rome’s Gemelli University Hospital administer ‘mechanical ventilation’ after pontiff’s latest health setback.

ROME: Pope Francis suffered two new acute respiratory crises Monday and was put back on noninvasive mechanical ventilation, in another setback to his battle to fight pneumonia, the Vatican said. Doctors extracted "copious" amounts of mucus from his lungs during two bronchoscopies,